FINDING THE HIDDEN COMMUNICATION IN HUMAN SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

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FINDING THE HIDDEN COMMUNICATION IN HUMAN SEXUAL
BEHAVIOR

• CLASS 6 CPSY 211
• 10-25-07

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The Elicitation Window

• Seeing the Meaning in Human Sexual Behavior

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Traditional Sex Therapy

• Might ban intercourse.
• Might prescribe sensate focus exercises.
• Might give specific homework
• For example In the TV show Tell Me You Love
  Me the therapist tells the couple
• to spend 30 minutes a day alone together
  behind locked doors.
• Therapy is based on the idea that the therapist
  is trying to help the clients reduce performance
  anxiety.

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Systemic Therapy using the Elicitation Window

• Looks at what couples or individuals are already
  doing (or not doing) to find meaning.
• Asks questions about the details of clients
  present sex lives in order to be able to
  understand them.
• Doesnt give homework or suggestions without a
  lot of thought and not early in treatment.
• May consider the idea that the couple is more
  likely experiencing response anxiety or fear of
  not feeling enough.

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3 Psychological Dimensions of Sexuality (Don
Mosher, 1980)

• Sensate Focus or Trance State
• Partner Engagement
• Role Play

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Sensate Focus or Trance State

• Focus is on sensations and feelings of the body.
  
• Can go from shallow to profound levels of
  involvement.
• Men tend to find this dimension more comfortable
  than women. (This is a broad generalization.)
• An individual focused on this dimension would
  find conversation or any visual input distracting
  them from sensation.

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Partner Engagement

• Likely to focus on endearments - more
  interpersonally communicative
• Eyes are likely to be open and looking at each
  other.
• This dimension may be more conversational.
• This dimension can also go from a shallow to a
  profound level of involvement.

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Role Enactment

• This might include flirting, being very playful
  at a simple level.
• Moderate level might be doing and being done.
• A deeper level could include costumes and
  elaborate planning.

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Working with Psychological Dimensions with Clients

• Therapist might
• explain these dimensions to the client.
• ask which of these dimensions does each member of
  the couple engage in?
• ask what depth of involvement do you think you
  experience?
• ask whether clients might find another dimension
  meaningful or helpful.

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What makes using the Elicitation Window Difficult?

• Asking for details of couples sex lives or
  masturbation seems somehow too personal.
• Therapists are afraid that if they get the
  details, they wont know what to do with them.

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Traditional Sex Therapy

• Takes a sex history of the clients.when did
  they begin to be sexual, what happened, when did
  they marry, etc.

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Systemic/Differentiation Based Sex Therapy

• Looks at what the clients are doing sexually in
  the present to help them find meaning and choices.

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Opening the Elicitation Window

• The easiest way to begin is to ask questions
  about the details of initiation and foreplay.
• Ask, Who initiates?
• Get a video in your mind of the details of
  their initiation.

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Opening the Window continued

• Ask about foreplay
• What does foreplay look like (again you need to
  be able to see it in your head.)
• Who decides when foreplay moves to intercourse
  (if it does)?

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Whats happening in your head and whats
happening in your bed?

• Find out whats going on in each individuals
  head--what are they thinking, what are they
  saying to themselves?
• Find out exactly what is going on, the lights,
  who is doing what to whom, etc.

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More on the Elicitation Window

• As you work with clients, you will begin to see a
  picture of who they are.
• Why dont they ask for what they want?
• Why dont they give each other what they want?
• In fantasy, how do the people in the fantasy feel
  about them?
• What kind of families did they grow up in that
  would create these people and this tone in bed?